


Burn

by cherri_bombe



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2012, Angst, Customer Service, Heavy Angst, M/M, Outing, POV First Person, Unhappy Ending, oblique references to suicide, vday video
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 18:22:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherri_bombe/pseuds/cherri_bombe
Summary: sentimentality was our downfall





	Burn

I saved all the chat logs between us. From the moment I saw you I knew you were mine. 

It was effortless, in the end, how you ensnared me. I was home, shiftless and bored, and there you were - in my replies and in my head. The first thing I thought of on waking, last thing on my screen before sleeping. 

*

_ do you ever think about what the future will be like _

** _Of course! Don’t you?_ **

_ i think about it all the time _

** _I like to think it will be better than now_ **

_ literally anything would be better than now _

** _You know that theory about infinite parallel universes?_ **

_ i guess kind of _

**Any small decision you make creates a new universe where your life is different**

what are you saying

**If you don’t like your life the way it is, you can change it**

this is deep for a tuesday night

**Your mum is deep on a Tuesday night ^_^**

lol shut up XD

*

“He seems kind of…” she sighs, unsure what to say, “intense? ardent? I don’t know. He’s everywhere. I see him all the time in your comments, and on twitter.”

Anja is not usually one to hold back. We’re closer than that. I was there for her when she was figuring stuff out, and she was there for me when the whole okcupid thing blew up and everyone found out about me. The fact that she is hesitant here gives me pause. 

“And?” I say, sharper than I intend to, “He likes my videos. He’s alright. We’ve talked a lot.”  _ and Skyped a lot, amongst other things _ is what I don’t say.

“But that’s what I mean,” I can almost hear her biting her lip, “Does he like you for you or does he like you because you’re famous?”

“I’m not famous.” I say automatically. The thought makes me squirm, half-cringe, half-butterflies. There is silence for a while. I glance at Sarah Michelle looking down from my wall and think about dark eyes and sharp collarbones. An involuntary exhale.

“You have a type,” she says, finally, “Look at Charlie,” there is a loaded pause, “And this one  _ knows _ . He knows he’s your type.” 

“What are you saying?”

“I’m just saying be careful, love. He’s hungry. He’s hungry for you and your fame. He admires you. He wants to be you and be with you. Be careful he doesn’t step on you to get what he wants.”

I hang up.

*

He hits 300,000 on 1st August 2012 and by this point he has more subscribers than I do. I’m happy for him and his success. But something is changing in our relationship and now the enquiries are coming to both of us, rather than just me. And it’s him that they want. 

I can hear him from my room, when he’s doing live shows. I don’t even have to log in. I just lie on my bed, looking at the cracked ceiling, and I hear him through the wall. Denying it. Denying us, a thousand times. Every time he is asked. 

I know why he does it, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. 

*

The shift happened before either of us knew it. Turns out the difference between Senpai and Sidekick is only a couple of hundred thousand. 

He is the one they’re in love with. He is the spokesperson for our brand. He is the poster boy in the teen magazines and they put up with me because we come as a double act. It doesn’t hurt and it’s fine because he loves me. Whatever pays the rent. 

*

When it gets too much, when I need reassurance, I read the logs. 

There in black and white are his declarations of undying love. Secrets thrown into an electronic void in the dead of night. Thank god the video chat is not archived. 

So many grand plans for world domination and now we are on the precipice he is changing the rules of the jump. 

*

The first time it leaked, I worried it would be the end of us, and it would be my fault. My fault for not deleting it. My fault for making it in the first place. The second time was a retaliation for your words, a knife in the vein of our relationship. 

Remember: cut vertical, not horizontal.

*

Rule number one, when you want a rumour to die, is “least said, soonest mended.”

There is no need to provide customer service. 

*

She calls me, late one night. I see the name flash on the screen and debate not answering, but my defences are already low.

“I’m furious. You know that, right?”

“Anja, he’s scared. That’s all it is. He’s young and scared and lashing out. He…” my excuses for him die on my tongue. It hurts as much as it had when I first saw the post. A fissure in my chest, vulnerable to wind and weather and my oldest friend. 

“He called it wrong and creepy! He said the idea of you being together was infuriating!” She is properly worked up. I flinch, holding the phone further from my ear, her hateful words are clearly audible in my quiet room and a spike of panic shoots in my gut that he’ll hear. Then I remember that he’s almost certainly deep in his game, wearing headphones. But the fear adrenaline doesn’t leave. 

“That’s not… He… you don’t know what he’s been through!” Why am I making excuses for him? She is undeterred. 

“You know what I think? He’s getting entirely too big for his boots. He’d be nothing, nobody, without you. How dare he talk shit about you now that he’s got what he wants?”

“It’s them,” I say with a sob, because my armour can only stand her jabs for so long, “they’re the ones that will never let it go.”

“You put yourselves in the public eye, people are going to speculate,” she says, remorseless. “The only reason you get paid for what you do is because you have the numbers. You can’t control 300,000 people.”

She’s not wrong. We sit in silence for a long while, as tears make cold trails on my cheeks and he stares at a screen in the dark in another room.

*

The bed dips as he gets in, waking me from a restless sleep. My eyes are tacky from the night before but I can see soft pink light at the edge of the blinds. It must be gone 4am, or thereabouts. He grunts and tries to put an arm around me but I roll away. 

“What?” He says, annoyed. 

“Do you have to sleep here?” I mumble into the pillow.

“What?” He says again, louder. He has effectively dragged me out of whatever meagre sleep I was managing, and it sparks annoyance. 

“Go and sleep in your own bed,” I snap.

“The fuck?” He is incredulous, “This is my bed”

“No.” I prop myself up on my elbow to glare at him. “This is my bed. And I’m telling you to get out.”

“You’re serious.” He says with a sneer.

“Wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re secretly bumming your friend, would you?” I see his eyes go huge in the half-light. It’s not fair. It’s not fair and I know it. But we haven’t had a conversation in four days, he’s been plugged in to Guild Wars 2 at every opportunity, and this hateful nonsense has been cycling around the Internet, in my face and in my heart and I've had enough. 

He leaves. 

*

Days later.

“You know why this is hard for me,” he spits, recrimination hard in his eyes. “You know everything about me,”

“I know,” I confirm, listless. The fight has drained out of me. After that night I found him, not in his room, but curled under a blanket on the sofa bed in the office. Maybe I don’t care any more.

“I can’t be gay,” he says. He puts a hand up, waving away my rebuttals that aren’t coming anyway. “Publicly, I can't do it. It would ruin everything. Everything we’re trying to build here. You see that, right? We’d never just be us. We’d always be the ‘gay couple’. For every creepy shipper we have now, the ones digging up old photos and harassing Adrian, we’ll have so many more once they know we’re gay.”

“I know.” I say again, helpless. Fixed in my mind is the image of me putting my tongue inside my grandmas vagina. I leave the room and go downstairs to the bathroom where I am quietly sick.

*

He sleeps in monochrome, in pale daylight, and I commit the data that represents our early relationship to the digital void. Hundreds of hours of words of love, tender joy and fragile trust. It’s too painful to read any more and anyway, I can’t risk another leak. I hate that it came to this. 

Those logs are too revealing, too much of both of us and our early days. Maybe someone who has read through our hours and hours of conversation would be more sympathetic, could better understand why you chose to publish those hateful words, but you don’t deserve that. You wilfully tore us apart and set fire to our shredded remains. 

Nobody has the right to my feelings on this situation. Why haven’t I commented on this? Why haven’t I made my denials if it weren’t true? 

Because I don’t owe you anything. You are not welcome in my relationship. You are not welcome in my bed or to know who I chose to love and make love to. 

Not on fire?

I hope that you burn. 

**Author's Note:**

> the cursed crossover that nobody asked for, but would not leave my brain once the connection had been made. i apologise for this.


End file.
